I finished it the other day on the PC. To me it was fun, I enjoyed the story, I enjoyed the gameplay, I actually liked some of the characters, and the upgrade system was interesting. I am enjoying going back to explored areas and finding all the items that were available there... so that gives it some re-playability. I liked the "new" Croft as well. I enjoyed seeing her character develop. The graphics were great... imho.

I did feel that it was a little easy (I died a handful of times, even on the hardest settings) Of course that said, I play those type of games a lot, and have been playing them for 15 years +

It was not too short - but once you reach about 60% through the game... it seemed to accelerate and the end happened before I was expecting it.

It didn't have as much platforming as one would usually expect in a Tomb Raider game - BUT you do get some nifty weapons, tools, and you do have to jump, climb, dodge, shoot, etc to easily make up for the lack of platforming puzzles.

I've played through for a few hours and find it to be pretty good. I'm probably around half way through. The graphics with everything turned on are quite decent.

I too am finding it to be a bit leaner on the platforming - to the point where I couldn't decide if I should be playing with a game pad or keyboard and mouse. But I stuck with the latter. I've only played on normal, but I did find it easy. Especially the combat. That said, it wasn't because the AI was bad, it's just that after a few upgrades, Lara becomes quite the bad ass in short order and can take quite the beating.

The one thing that could perhaps use a bit more polish are the control mechanics, especially in some of the scripted action sequences. At times, I found control to be a bit clunky, but it was fine in open environments. But this is a small nitpick.

Hi all! So I'm really liking this game. I actually considered myself done with gaming until I ended up being a beneficiary of Never Settle Reloaded. Now I'm kinda hooked on this game, while Bioshock Infinite gathers some digital dust.

The graphics really are quite decent. The Tress FX does add an element, especially in cut scenes. I'm surprised that even at 1600x1200 an HD 7850 2GB struggles at times when there's lots of Tress FX on the screen. But the jungle environments and, well, all the environments seem really well done. The inclement weather is pretty convincing.

The game play is good. I'm now able to climb and tether and strike-light my torch. That's awesome. Now that I can do that Imma have to go back to some areas. I love being able to climb all over the environment. I love that the environment is so integral to the game - the environmental puzzles that have to be solved and the fact that, being Tomb Raider, one of the goals is to explore every inch of the world. If anything is lacking it is there isn't enough of a stealth element to the combat. So far its seems that the combat is just too direct and overt, though not that it's dissatisfying. Um, what else... there are some entertaining deaths that result when from a failed challenge.

Bioshock Infinite will be next but I have two problems with that game. First, it makes me very, very motion sick. Second - and this was totally unexpected (I was actually looking forward to this game and considered coming out of gaming retirement just for this game) - I was nothing short of disappointed with the way that the game is a completely different setting, story, and characters than Bioshock 1 & 2 but so much of the game play and the aesthetics from those get carried over. It's like a new game that's not a new game. That bummed me out. But anyway, if I can get past the motion sickness I'll push through and maybe it will end up being a better feeling experience.

flip-mode wrote:Bioshock Infinite will be next but I have two problems with that game. I was nothing short of disappointed with the way that the game is a completely different setting, story, and characters than Bioshock 1 & 2 but so much of the game play and the aesthetics from those get carried over.

I don't suffer from motion sickness, but I've heard many people who do suffer relate it to a narrow FOV.

I have installed, but not started Bioshock Infinite yet. If there's a way to increase the FOV to at least 85 degrees or so, I have heard that that is enough to help.

Too many console-games used narrow (sub-70 degree) FOV's as a way to reduce the polygon count on screen for performance games. It's a nasty habit that seems to have caught on, especially when peripheral vision is typically as much as 160 degrees.

Some people ask me why I have always enclosed my signature in spoiler tags; There is a good reason for that, but I can't elaborate without giving away the plot twist.

flip-mode wrote:Bioshock Infinite will be next but I have two problems with that game. I was nothing short of disappointed with the way that the game is a completely different setting, story, and characters than Bioshock 1 & 2 but so much of the game play and the aesthetics from those get carried over.

You do know that Bioshock Infinite is a prequel right?

Nope. Didn't. I guess I need to research game lore now before playing games. That justification does make me feel better.

I thought that Lara as a character was great, and the game of itself was really good, but it didn't feel 100% like a Tomb Raider game to me. I get that it was a reboot and we're in a different industry now, but.. well, read the blog entry =)

Loved the graphics, and the overall game play. The story is cool and somewhat original, even if it gets a little out-there towards the end. The combat mechanics were cool; I like the emphasis on dodging and countering. The island is nicely done, with some very nice looking scenery. I liked the upgrading system, for the most part. I liked the fact that they tried to make Lara a vulnerable character. She winces in pain, limps after injuries, shows emotion when dealing with other characters.

Some of the death scenes are pretty graphic. I don't mind them, but I'd definitely pay attention to the violence rating if you're a parent.

Couple of things I wish were done differently... I would have liked a lot more emphasis on puzzle solving. To me, that is Tomb Raider. And even in this game, I found the puzzles to be the most interesting and fun parts of the game - the optional tomb with the wind puzzle was excellent. I wish there'd been more of that.

Way too much emphasis on combat, in my opinion. I would have preferred - and this kind of falls in line with puzzle solving - a lot less enemies, but more strategy involved in dealing with them. Also, while I like that they tried to treat Lara as a more realistic and vulnerable character, the fact that she's taking down entire platoons of trained soldiers on their home turf kind of negates that by the final third of the plot.

The upgrade system was cool, but a little too simplistic. Rather than collecting generic "salvage" it would have been more interesting, in my opinion, to have to actually either find upgraded weapons or find specific items to construct them. Yeah, I know they added "item parts" at seemingly random locations, but that isn't the same.

The final "boss" battle was anti-climactic, but frankly after the second-to-last battle, I wasn't too upset about that

I did enjoy the way that weather and environment were used; especially the wind at the later stages.

Overall I thought it was a great game, well worth buying. I just feel there were some ways it could have been even better.

I love this new tomb raider along with 3d......I bet your brother is absolutely right.

Another game that looked surprisingly awesome in 3d was diablo 3....stunning for a dungeon crawler.

I know you have a vt30 3d panny tv along with a hd7770....if you have diablo 3 i rec you download the tridef 3d drivers and run it in 720p and check it out. 1080p does not play smooth enough 24fps but 720p does 60fps...just crank up some aa and af.

auxy wrote:Started this game the other night. I'm only about an hour in, but jesus wept I hate this game so far. I'm kinda busy at work, so I'll update this post later. (⊙︿⊙✿)

Well, I forgot to update this when I got home, but it's slow as Christmas today, so I'll write a little more.

I went into Tomb Raider really excited to play it. As a woman and a feminist (proper, old-school feminism, not this new, awful, misandrist garbage you see on the 'net), the idea of a game that presented a real, believable, feminine woman -- not a sassy man with a pretty face and breasts -- struggling for survival amidst a harsh wilderness environment was very intriguing!

The game was supposed to come out late in 2012 and I had it pre-ordered, originally, because I was looking forward to it so. When it got delayed to 2013, I canceled my pre-order for a few reasons: because I wanted to buy another game, because I had to give one of my GTX 460s to my girlfriend, and because I was quickly becoming less sure of my aged single GTX460's ability to really let me enjoy the game. I also decided I didn't need a retail copy of the game laying around; just more junk to throw away.

In March, when my mysterious benefactor here on the forums gifted me a substantial GPU upgrade, I went ahead and bought the game, and then, preoccupied with work and my ongoing free-to-play addiction, it languished unplayed in my Steam account (not even installed!) until last week, when I finally got around to playing it, and now, I sorta wish I never had. Everything I've heard about this game without exception is nothing but effluent praise! Praise for the graphics, praise for the gameplay, and most of all, praise for the depiction of Lara as a cornered rat fighting for survival.

Well, I'm not a fan. I loaded the game up and within minutes of hitting "new game" I was frustratedly tapping the Esc key, mouthing "yeah I get it." When I FINALLY get control of my character, I watch this supposedly-realistic protagonist fall some fifteen meters onto a stone surface, impaling herself (right through the kidney!) on a bony spike, which she proceeds to yank out like an action movie protagonist. Now, at this point, I probably should have realized what the tone of the game was going to be. I didn't, though, because the game immediately goes into a lot of melodrama in Lara's behavior (movements and what she says) that's fairly appropriate for someone in such a situation. I thought, "well, maybe that drop wasn't as far as it looked, and maybe that spike didn't quite get her kidney." Okay. And then, not even minutes later -- maybe one minute -- they have you jumping and climbing.

HELLO? CRIPPLING TRUNK INJURY HERE? She should be BLEEDING OUT and SEPTIC, not climbing up onto things. (Not to mention all the dirty water and other filth she wades through throughout the rest of the game, with OPEN WOUNDS.) I wasn't aware Lara had Wolverine's healing factor! But okay, okay, it's just a video game, maybe they're not going for stark realism. Move on, through the cave...

Well, I could write a whole huge blog entry about how stupid the beginning of the game is, but my real problem with the game is that the stupidity doesn't really ever stop. The melodrama goes on and on and at no point does the game ever give any hint that the player isn't supposed to take all of this seriously, at face value; at no point does the game ever relent in the assault on suspension of disbelief. Lara goes from simpering little teenaged girl to remorseless killing machine in the matter of a couple of cutscenes, and both sides of her personality are so overblown, so over-acted, that it's impossible to take either one seriously. She's a caricature of a character. If the game at any point had been tongue-in-cheek; if the game at any point had ever stopped to explain any of the impossible, nonsensical things that happen, I might have been a little okay with it. It never does though; it takes itself all too seriously, and that ended up being the downfall for me.

There are also myriad smaller issues beyond the godawful Lifetime story and wretched, ham-fisted presentation, too. Why is Sam's VA the worst Japanese speaker in the group? (Maybe that's why the islanders wanted to possess her with an ancient storm goddess -- to get her to respect her culture and pronounce some damn words right.) Why, in all the emphasis on drama and realism, is there no bandaging mechanic? There's already a scrounging and salvage mechanic; would it have been that hard to implement medical supplies in there too? (This wasn't done because the game is so over-the-top with this at points that it would have been impossible to do this without highlighting how stupid the rest of the game is.) Why is so much of the world geometry made up of like 9 polygons, while Lara's face gets tessellated to ridiculous levels? Why am I using an AXE to pry open boxes, when there are clearly much more suited tools laying around? I could go on for hours.

Yah, I realize it seems like I'm nitpicking on what is, in many ways, a fantastic game. The graphics, especially the weather effects, DO look pretty good, and I especially appreciate the support for superior super-sampling anti-aliasing. The sound design was pretty well done too, even if I want to stab half the voice actors; the foley work on the ambience was excellent. The gameplay, too, was really very competent, and in fact, I actually have no real serious complaints about the game as a game. I just wish they wouldn't have tried so hard to make me care about their completely ludicrous story and characters, because in so doing they made me hate their game.

JohnC wrote:So many words... Soo, TL;DR - you didn't like to be new Katniss, even with game's good graphics quality and a good overall gameplay? :wink:

Hello mysterious benefactor! I have no idea what your post means, though. (￣ω￣;)

I mean it sounded like you liked teh gameplay mechanics, game engine and its effects but not the role of the protagonist... Well, at least that what I got from quick look at those many words :wink:

posting from my phone while driving ... don't worry, I'm using voice dictation so it's not nearly as dangerous as it sounds, but it may not be especially intelligible. Basically my complaint with the game is with how it was presented and how it was marketed. As a game, that is as an experience to be played and interacted with I thought it was pretty okay. However even considered as a game, it's still has to be considered including the plot and characterization. These were the things that I've found most troublesome, and given the fact that I am someone who usually skips cutscenes and dialog in favor of getting to gameplay faster, it should be especially striking that the story and characterization are what really ruin the game for me.

Crystal Dynamics they went out of their way try and make Laura a character you can empathize with and feel sorry for. In the end the writing was not good enough to complex this, um that was accomplished not complex, anyway, send the writing wasn't good enough to do this they had to try and do it or at least enhance the feeling of it through further characterization such as her behaviors and her voice acting. In the end it really came off feeling forced and desperate, and I don't mean desperate in the way they meant, rather desperate as in desperate to have us feel that way about the character.

auxy wrote:Well, I'm not a fan. I loaded the game up and within minutes of hitting "new game" I was frustratedly tapping the Esc key, mouthing "yeah I get it." When I FINALLY get control of my character, I watch this supposedly-realistic protagonist fall some fifteen meters onto a stone surface, impaling herself (right through the kidney!) on a bony spike, which she proceeds to yank out like an action movie protagonist. Now, at this point, I probably should have realized what the tone of the game was going to be. I didn't, though, because the game immediately goes into a lot of melodrama in Lara's behavior (movements and what she says) that's fairly appropriate for someone in such a situation. I thought, "well, maybe that drop wasn't as far as it looked, and maybe that spike didn't quite get her kidney." Okay. And then, not even minutes later -- maybe one minute -- they have you jumping and climbing.

HELLO? CRIPPLING TRUNK INJURY HERE? She should be BLEEDING OUT and SEPTIC, not climbing up onto things. (Not to mention all the dirty water and other filth she wades through throughout the rest of the game, with OPEN WOUNDS.) I wasn't aware Lara had Wolverine's healing factor! But okay, okay, it's just a video game, maybe they're not going for stark realism. Move on, through the cave...

auxy wrote:HELLO? CRIPPLING TRUNK INJURY HERE? She should be BLEEDING OUT and SEPTIC, not climbing up onto things. (Not to mention all the dirty water and other filth she wades through throughout the rest of the game, with OPEN WOUNDS.) I wasn't aware Lara had Wolverine's healing factor! But okay, okay, it's just a video game, maybe they're not going for stark realism.

Luckily my day job never interferes with the willing suspension of disbelief needed to truly enjoy games. After all, who would make a game about a bank examiner?

It looks like I can pick up Tomb Raider Survival Edition for $28.99 on Origin, $57.99 on Steam. While I dislike EA and Origin I don't dislike them enough to hand Steam an extra $29. I have been debating over getting this game or wait for the price to drop. Seems like this is my chance to get it with out waiting for a across the board price drop. Is it worth getting, even if I have to hand EA some money in the process? I think this is a one day deal so I am going to have to decide later on today.

Khali wrote:It looks like I can pick up Tomb Raider Survival Edition for $28.99 on Origin, $57.99 on Steam. While I dislike EA and Origin I don't dislike them enough to hand Steam an extra $29. I have been debating over getting this game or wait for the price to drop. Seems like this is my chance to get it with out waiting for a across the board price drop. Is it worth getting, even if I have to hand EA some money in the process? I think this is a one day deal so I am going to have to decide later on today.

You can get the Steam version at other places than Steam. Right now, the Steam version is $40 at Amazon and $37 here. If you really want a cheap Steam version, you could look for someone selling the AMD game bundle games individually. For example, here is Tomb Raider Steam key going on ebay for $20.

You buy it, get your Steam code, add it to your account and download through Steam...